Title: Reaction Kinetics: Effect of Concentration on the Rate of Reaction of Sodium Thiosulphate with

Hydrochloric Acid

Introduction:

Materials:

Procedure:

1) All the material and apparatus have been set before the experiment started.
2) A measuring cylinder was used to measure 50cm3 of 0.05M sodium thiosulphate solution into a
beaker.
3) A measuring cylinder was used to measure 5cm3 of 2.0M hydrochloric acid and this was placed
into a second beaker.
4) An x was drawn onto a piece of paper and a the beaker was placed onto it.
5) The hydrochloric acid were poured into the beaker of 50cm3 of 0.05M sodium thiosulphate and
the timer was started.
6) The timer was stopped when the x was no longer visible when viewed from above.
7) Record the result.
8) The experiment was repeated with 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, and 15cm3 and 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30
and 35cm3 of distilled water in each case.

Results:
Volume of 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15
thiosulphate,
V (cm3)
Time of 93 96 115 145 170 239 334 481
reaction, t
(sec)
1/t(sec)1 0.0107 0.0104 0.00869 0.00689 0.00588 0.00418 0.00299 0.00207

Discussion:
Based on the graph, when the volume of thiosulphate,V increases, the 1/t increases.
The lesser the V, the longer it takes for the sulfur to precipitate. The 15cm3 of
thiosulphate is added with 35cm3 of distilled water, so it takes longer to react with the
hydrochloric acid. The rate of reaction goes slower. The rate of reaction is inversely
proportional to the time taken for a reaction. Actually, that is two obvious changes occur
for measuring the rate of reaction, (a) Quantity of a reactant decreases with time (b)
Quantity of a product increases with time. *Quantity: no of moles of substances, mass,
volume, concentration*. In addition, there will be a visible changes in a chemical reaction
to measure the rate of reaction, for example, volume of a gas liberated, formation of a
precipitate, colour changes, changes in the mass during a rate of reaction, temperature
changes, pressure changes, pH changes, changes in the electrical conductivity of the
solution and changes in the concentration of the solution of a reactant.. The concentration
of reactant increases, the rate of reaction increases. The explanation is when the
concentration of solution of a reactant increases, the no of particles per unit volume of
reactant increases, the frequency of collision among the colliding particles increases, the
frequency of effective collision increases, hence, the rate of reaction increases. Next,
some errors may have appears in this experiment. The first error is parallax error. The
second error is when we identify the precipitation of sulfur. We may have different
timing to ensure the cross to be obscured. Third error is the when the time we initiate or
stop the stopwatch, we may stop the time earlier or initiate the time earlier. Fourth error is
when we are transferring the solution from one instrument to another, the first instrument
must have some leftover in it, hence the second instrument might have not the same
amount of solution we need. Fifth error is the systematic error caused by the instrument
itself. As a result, we have some precaution steps to overcome the errors. First, to avoid
parallax error, the eye must be level with the readings of the measurement. Second, we
must be alert to ensure the timing of the obscured cross is almost the same. Third, we
must stay clear-headed when clicking the stopwatch. Our finger and eye must be
synchronized. Fourth, try to reduce the steps of transferring the solution, the shorter the
steps, the more accurate the result we can get. Fifth, we can change the instrument to
reduce zero error. Lastly, we can repeat the experiment at least 3 times to get an average
value.